Hey guys, did you catch that episode of Breaking Bad last night? Wow, the way he mowed down all those neo-nazis was mindblowing! Gee, I feel like we're connected so much on an intrinsic level! And gosh, that South Park episode about murder porn? Man, I totally thought the sex scenes and violence were great! You think so too? Wow! Shared experience!!!

Sarcasm? Maybe. But this is what you are saying, brought down to the lowest common denominator.

I have had countless great conversations spurred by South Park and Breaking Bad. Those are great examples. If you can't look past the profanity and vulgarity in those programs, you may find many parts of history and contemporary affairs vulgar. South Park takes on a lot of serious issues and they are, surprisingly, critical of atheists and Christians and a wide spectrum of beliefs.

What I'm saying is based in the writings of nationalist scholars, specifically Benedict Anderson and his "Imagined Community." Culture is important and it acts as a sort of glue for society. Completely isolating yourself from the mainstream culture means that you cannot even critique the culture you may find repugnant. The best way to critique media is to watch it, it's very hard to launch an effective criticism when you have not seen something. Personally, I don't think it's bad to expose yourself to profanity, vulgarity, and other things most conservatives believe are "inappropriate." History, and even the Bible, is full of things that provoke disgust and revulsion. Watching something does not mean you are tacitly endorsing it, you can always watch with a critical eye.

Origins of National Consciousness wrote:

Along with the above historical happenings that laid the path to the consciousness of nationalism, the practice of print-capitalism facilitated the imagining of the nation. The expansion of the book market contributed to the vernacularization of languages. Print languages created unified fields of communication, which enabled speakers of a diverse variety of languages to become aware of one another via print and paper. These people, consequently, became aware of the existence of the millions who share their nation and language. Print-capitalism also gave fixity to language, which stabilized it and gave print language a sense of antiquity that enhanced the feeling of nationalism. Finally, the notion of print capitalism gave dominance to a few selected languages for their printability: dialects that were closer to print languages than others were the ones that were commonly used and persisted through history (44-46)

You are so condescending towards those who disagree with you on this. Do you deny the possibility that an adult may be highly intelligent, may have considered the options, is reasonable and open, and yet chooses spanking as a legitimate last resort? My parents spanked me, and I am fine; I will personally be willing to spank my own children, in love and as a last resort, as John III put it.

I am not denying that abuse is real, nor that your own (or any other HA member's) parents may have used spanking abusively. But you are dead wrong when you equate ALL corporal punishment to beating.

Someone asked me to plainly state my beliefs and I did so. I tried to explain why I believe spanking is so prevalent, but simultaneously a "bad practice." Simply appealing to tradition and saying "this is the way children are raised" is not enough. I'm not saying everyone who spanks is ignorant, look at my words I try to be precise: "I believe that spanking is a lazy parenting technique used by people who are generally not educated in other methods." I'm not claiming sweeping generalizations, but I think spanking is very widespread and most people have not put much thought into it.

You object to my use of "beating" when discussing spanking, I realize that. I admitted my position would probably offend many of you. Please don't take personal offense. I'm here trying to just inform you about my perspective, which is shared by a large portion of mainstream society - especially among the "humanist intellgentsia."

Masked Midnight wrote:

I don't understand why family conversations can't be just as (if not far more so) yielding than a television program in terms of "shared experience".

Socialization is about more than just having conversations with family members. There is no reason you cannot watch television and have a family conversation about it. The two are not mutually exclusive actions. Some of my fondest memories of childhood are when my parents introduced me to a particularly good film. Films and good television have the capacity to provoke imagination and thoughts just like a book. I don't understand why everyone thinks books are always superior to television. If you read bad books, it's a waste of time. If you watch terrible television, it's a waste of time. Just like parents should help pick out good literature for their children, they should help them discern good media. Part of that is exposing yourself to media, at an age-appropriate level, and learning how to criticize and critique it. How is that activity now a productive one for a family to engage in? Would it be better to close to your children off from all television and not prepare them to criticize it? TV isn't going to go away.

Hey guys, did you catch that episode of Breaking Bad last night? Wow, the way he mowed down all those neo-nazis was mindblowing!

Not as mindblowing as when he is honest with his wife for the first time in two years and fully admits what kind of person he has become, and her countenance shows that this is all she ever wanted to hear from him, even though the relationship is permanently destroyed.

By the way, if you want to connect with some alumni and people in the HA community other than me and the few others that have commented here, here's a Facebook group we are launching to facilitate discussion. Our goal is to create a safe and respectful environment for current and former homeschool students, in order to dialogue about shared experiences. Just PM me here with your IRL name and a link to your FB if you have trouble joining up.

I'll third the pro-TV sentiment with respect to South Park and Breaking Bad (and shows like them). The "content" that you are objecting to is not in fact real content, but a vehicle for the witty, insightful, and thought-provoking content that the shows consistently deliver.

I think [South Park is] horrible and not worth watching, even for it's so-called intelligent social insights. You can quote me on that. ... South Park is vulgar and vile for the sake of being so ... Um, actually, you're quite wrong in regards to South Park. That's all I'll say.

South Park isn't vulgar and vile "for the sake of being so," it is vulgar and vile for the sake of making a point about vulgarity and society's reaction to it. As mentioned before, South Park lampoons pretty much everything, and they do intentionally "cross lines". Not because they're 12 and like to giggle at naughty words, but because they're trying to engage people in a way you can't without that kind of "content" and because they're constantly critiquing the whole idea of the portrayal and censorship of vulgar content in the first place (some episodes, e.g. "It Hits the Fan", do this more explicitly than others).

With that said: this is definitely off-topic and I'm willing to bet that nobody's going to change anybody's mind anytime soon, so I'm willing to agree to disagree, as I feel like I've expressed my opinion adequately. One thing I will actually agree on, though (and this is a little more on-topic), is that it's very important for parents to set a "maturity bar" for watching shows like South Park (and Breaking Bad, and movies like the Dark Knight, etc.) A 12-year-old shouldn't watch this stuff, since they're just not mature enough to process it in a helpful way.

By the way, if you want to connect with some alumni and people in the HA community other than me and the few others that have commented here, here's a Facebook group we are launching to facilitate discussion. Our goal is to create a safe and respectful environment for current and former homeschool students, in order to dialogue about shared experiences. Just PM me here with your IRL name and a link to your FB if you have trouble joining up.

Note - you won't be able to see the community until you're a member. If you'd like to join, please just message me on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/cren771) or PM me here. The other admins and I will manually be adding members - in keeping the group a bit private, we hope to ensure a safe space separate from the public side of HA where we can get to know each other and support each other on a more personal level. I hope you all consider joining in the conversation.

--Caitlin

_________________"What happened to your apartment?""I filled it with playpen balls!""I...what? Why?""Because we're grown-ups now, and it's our turn to decide what that means."<3

It's not just about "chuckles in a conversation," it's about human connection through shared experience.

I get that human connection with the people I know at karate and the hours we have all spent together, and with people I've worked/studied with. Every once and a while a TV show, movie, or song reference might whosh past my head, but I don't think I've missed much. The point is, I can find this shared experience in other ways beside spending hours filling my memory with otherwise useless items from popular culture.

And that is why I don't think it is good to let someone too young spend much time watching the TV (and I wouldn't encourage it for someone older). Although a little bit of exposure is probably good so they are a bit more familiar with the culture around them without wasting much time.

_________________If we don't study the mistakes of the future we are doomed to repeat them for the first time. - Ken M

That article gave me a very different take on your work. In particular, the beginning of the piece opened my eyes. The sort of experiences described there are so utterly foreign to anything I experienced homeschooling that I think I have underestimated the sorts of issues you are trying to address. At the very least, the article helped me to see the H.A. community, which I had previously thought of as "anti-homeschooling," as an attempt to get help for some bewildered people who desperately need it. Thanks for posting it.

_________________"Be forbearing when you compare usWith those who were the perfection of order.We who everywhere seek adventure,We are not your enemies.We would give you vast and strange domainsWhere flowering mystery waits for him would pluck it."

That's really cool! Although, I dislike how the book says hat "adult supervision was considerably less conspicuous" on HSD than it was at official events. Makes it sound like adults were breathing down the necks of their students, which isn't the case. From my experience, discussion is every bit as unsupervised at debate tournaments as it is on HSD.

EDIT: For that matter, I highly dislike how this book says "adults running the tournaments knew the correct answers to all debate topics, and these were always the conclusions the debaters themselves were expected to reach..." This demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of how NCFCA works. They intentionally choose nonpartisan debate topics that invoke very little conservative bias, and the administration does not expect the students to reach any conclusion other than their own. I don't know where the author is getting his information on this point. Maybe these things used to be different back in the day, but from what I understand, NCFCA debate topics have always avoided extreme bias.

While we're on the topic, has there ever been an attempt at creating a "modern homeschool history" from a crowdsourced, alumni perspective? For instance, a detailed look at the homeschool landscape from, say, 1980 through present? (e.g. How/when HSLDA appeared, when states started making it legal, how NCFCA/Stoa split, etc., etc.)

Would there be interest in doing such a project? I'd totally be interested.

_________________

"The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits"

While we're on the topic, has there ever been an attempt at creating a "modern homeschool history" from a crowdsourced, alumni perspective? For instance, a detailed look at the homeschool landscape from, say, 1980 through present? (e.g. How/when HSLDA appeared, when states started making it legal, how NCFCA/Stoa split, etc., etc.)

Would there be interest in doing such a project? I'd totally be interested.

While we're on the topic, has there ever been an attempt at creating a "modern homeschool history" from a crowdsourced, alumni perspective? For instance, a detailed look at the homeschool landscape from, say, 1980 through present? (e.g. How/when HSLDA appeared, when states started making it legal, how NCFCA/Stoa split, etc., etc.)

Would there be interest in doing such a project? I'd totally be interested.

While we're on the topic, has there ever been an attempt at creating a "modern homeschool history" from a crowdsourced, alumni perspective? For instance, a detailed look at the homeschool landscape from, say, 1980 through present? (e.g. How/when HSLDA appeared, when states started making it legal, how NCFCA/Stoa split, etc., etc.)

Would there be interest in doing such a project? I'd totally be interested.

While we're on the topic, has there ever been an attempt at creating a "modern homeschool history" from a crowdsourced, alumni perspective? For instance, a detailed look at the homeschool landscape from, say, 1980 through present? (e.g. How/when HSLDA appeared, when states started making it legal, how NCFCA/Stoa split, etc., etc.)

Would there be interest in doing such a project? I'd totally be interested.

Ooh cool. For some reason, I have just now received an itch to turn this list into an actual book.

Doit doit doit.

(Unfortunately, I have very few memories from my homeschooling years outside of NCFCA/Stoa so I can't really contribute much outside of what is already on the internet.)

I'll look into it. I have a fairly busy summer ahead of me (so much to read and so much research to do), but I'll see if I can carve out a few hours a week to write something on it. I'll post in this thread (and probably start another one) for calls to collaboration if people want to do so.

Final product will likely be LaTeX'ed up because pretty typesetting is fun.

_________________

"The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits"

For that matter, I highly dislike how this book says "adults running the tournaments knew the correct answers to all debate topics, and these were always the conclusions the debaters themselves were expected to reach..." This demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of how NCFCA works. They intentionally choose nonpartisan debate topics that invoke very little conservative bias, and the administration does not expect the students to reach any conclusion other than their own.

It would be great if this is the case now, but I find that humorous based on my experience from 2004-2009. There was a strong conservative bias at play in many debate rounds (free markets good/policies requiring govt intervention bad, foreign aid bad, not to mention immigration year). IE rounds were even more skewed. All I had to do with an extemp topic about North Korea or Iran was present a simplified neo-con perspective on the situation without much analysis and generally that resulted in high rankings. And of course apologetics is explicitly bound by orthodoxy.

_________________I have gone to find myself. If I get back before I return, keep me here.

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